As the Organise list attracts new members there is a growing need to ensure that the volume of posts to the list remained low (and of high quality). This is important because many people on Organise have to pay for their email and only have limited time in which to read it. In particular email outside of the USA and parts of Western Europe tends to be both slow and expensive and we particularly want to maintain the participation of comrades from these countries. A high volume of mail can drive them off the list (See the note at the end for an illustration of the problem)
To achieve all this the following protocols for posting to Organise has been drawn up. Although there are sanctions for people who consistently break them we would hope that it will not be necessary to apply these and that people will follow these protocols out of respect for their comrades on the list.
1. There is to be no flaming on Organise!, that is no personal attacks on other Organise! members. This includes suggesting that someone should not be on Organise! Where you feel this to be the case you should email anyone in the Organise Administration group outlining why you believe this to be the case. You will then be included along with the person named in an off list discussion with the OA group to resolve this issue. (You are free to flame off list if you wish.)
2. No post is to be sent to Organise with a content where quotations from previous posts makes up 50% or more of the text. In general we would encourage replies in an essay format. Do not quote the previous message at the bottom of your reply, edit it out .Do not send messages simply saying 'I agree' (or the equivalent) to the list.
3. Do not send more then one post on any one subject to Organise in any twelve hour period. Do not send more then three posts to Organise in total in any twelve hour period. Obviously this does not apply to genuine emergencies.
4. Do not send announcements, posts or articles to Organise that are available elsewhere on the web or have been sent to other mailing lists. We recommend you send announcements, articles etc to the anarchist news service a-infos. We also recommend that all Organise list members subscribe to that service. To subscribe send the message 'subscribe a-infos' to lists@tao.ca. To send an article to a-infos mail a- infos@tao.ca. As of Jan 2000 A-infos had about five times more subscribers then Organise and you should assume that anyone who can handle the mail volume for news is subscribed to both lists. Others can check the a-infos web page
A infos has a web page that shows all the articles recently sent to it at www.ainfos.ca
Where you wish to generate discussion around an article you are free to post the URL and a brief summary of the article along with an offer to forward the entire article to any individual requesting it.
5. The existing points in the Organise list statement are also considered to be part of this protocol.
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As this protocol was being revised (Jan 2000) one org_admin member provided the following as a way of illustration for why it is needed
"I do not have the exact figures, but approximately:
Yearly Internet connection (that is what is paid to a "servidor" or server, apart from telephone bills) in at least one African country is superior to the yearly minimum wage.
Westerners travelling in countries like India can easily find fax/Internet shopfronts (like the European cybercafe but without the nonsense) in which they can have Internet access to read and send mails on URL postings. This only costs them a dollar or two. But a dollar or two in many of those countries are several hours or days' wages.